Designing Forms and Reports

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Modern Systems Analysisand DesignFourth
Edition

• Chapter 11
• Designing Forms and Reports

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Learning Objectives

• Explain the process of form and report design.
• Apply general guidelines for formatting forms and
  reports.
• Use color and know when color improves the
  usability of information.
• Format text, tables, and lists effectively.
• Explain how to assess usability and describe
  factors affecting usability.

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Forms vs. Reports

• Form
• A business document that contains some predefined
  data and may include some areas where additional
  data are to be filled in.
• An instance of a form is typically based on one
  database record.
• Report
• A business document that contains only predefined
  data.
• A passive document for reading or viewing data.
• Typically contains data from many database
  records or transactions.

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Common Types of Reports

• Scheduled produced at predefined time intervals
  for routine information needs
• Key-indicator provide summary of critical
  information on regular basis
• Exception highlights data outside of normal
  operating ranges
• Drill-down provide details behind summary of
  key-indicator or exception reports
• Ad-hoc respond to unplanned requests for
  non-routine information needs

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The Process of Designing Forms and Reports

• User-focused activity
• Follows a prototyping approach
• Requirements determination
• Who will use the form or report?
• What is the purpose of the form or report?
• When is the report needed or used?
• Where does the form or report need to be
  delivered and used?
• How many people need to use or view the form or
  report?

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The Process of Designing Forms and Reports (cont.)

• Prototyping
• Initial prototype is designed from requirements
• Users review prototype design and either accept
  the design or request changes
• If changes are requested, the construction-evaluat
  ion-refinement cycle is repeated until the design
  is accepted

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A coding sheet is an old tool for designing
forms and reports, usually associated with
text-based forms and reports for mainframe
applications.
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Visual Basic and other development tools provide
computer aided GUI form and report generation.
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Form/Report Design Specification

• The major deliverable of interface design
• Involves three parts
• Narrative overview characterizes users, tasks,
  system, and environmental factors
• Sample design image of the form (from coding
  sheet or form building development tool)
• Assessment measuring test/usability results
  (consistency, sufficiency, accuracy, etc.)

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Guidelines for Form and Report Design

• Meaningful titles clear, specific, version
  information, current date
• Meaningful information include only necessary
  information, with no need to modify
• Balanced layout adequate spacing, margins, and
  clear labels
• Easy navigation system show how to move forward
  and backward, and where you are currently

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A poor form design
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A better form design
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Uses of Highlighting in Forms and Reports

• Notify users of errors in data entry or
  processing.
• Provide warnings regarding possible problems.
• Draw attention to keywords, commands,
  high-priority messages, unusual data values.

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Methods for Highlighting

• Blinking
• Audible tones
• Intensity differences
• Size differences
• Font differences

• Reverse video
• Boxing
• Underlining
• All capital letters
• Offset positions of nonstandard information

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Highlighting can include use of upper case, font
size differences, bold, italics, underline,
boxing, and other approaches.
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Color vs. No Color

• Benefits from Using Color
• Soothes or strikes the eye
• Accents an uninteresting display
• Facilitates subtle discriminations in complex
  displays
• Emphasizes the logical organization of
  information
• Draws attention to warnings
• Evokes more emotional reactions

• Problems from Using Color
• Color pairings may wash out or cause problems for
  some users
• Resolution may degrade with different displays
• Color fidelity may degrade on different displays
• Printing or conversion to other media may not
  easily translate

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Guidelines for Displaying Text

• Case mixed upper and lower case, use
  conventional punctuation
• Spacing double spacing if possible, otherwise
  blank lines between paragraphs
• Justification left justify text, ragged right
  margins
• Hyphenation no hyphenated words between lines
• Abbreviations only when widely understood and
  significantly shorter than full text

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A poor help screen design
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A better help screen design
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Guidelines for Tables and Lists

• Labels
• All columns and rows should have meaningful
  labels.
• Labels should be separated from other information
  by using highlighting.
• Redisplay labels when the data extend beyond a
  single screen or page.

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Guidelines for Tables and Lists (cont.)

• Formatting columns, rows and text
• Sort in a meaningful order.
• Place a blank line between every five rows in
  long columns.
• Similar information displayed in multiple columns
  should be sorted vertically.
• Columns should have at least two spaces between
  them.
• Allow white space on printed reports for user to
  write notes.
• Use a single typeface, except for emphasis.
• Use same family of typefaces within and across
  displays and reports.
• Avoid overly fancy fonts.

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Guidelines for Tables and Lists (cont.)

• Formatting numeric, textual and alphanumeric
  data
• Right justify numeric data and align columns by
  decimal points or other delimiter.
• Left justify textual data. Use short line
  length, usually 30 to 40 characters per line.
• Break long sequences of alphanumeric data into
  small groups of three to four characters each.

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A poor table design
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A better table design
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Tables vs. Graphs

• Use tables for reading individual data values
• Use graphs for
• Providing quick summary
• Displaying trends over time
• Comparing points and patterns of variables
• Forecasting activity
• Simple reporting of vast quantities of
  information

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Bar and line graphs give pictorial summary
information that can enhance reports and forms.
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Assessing Usability

• Overall evaluation of how a system performs in
  supporting a particular user for a particular
  task
• There are three characteristics
• Speed
• Accuracy
• Satisfaction

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Guidelines for Maximizing Usability

• Consistency of terminology, formatting, titles,
  navigation, response time
• Efficiency minimize required user actions
• Ease self-explanatory outputs and labels
• Format appropriate display of data and symbols
• Flexibility maximize user options for data input
  according to preference

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Characteristics for Consideration

• User experience, skills, motivation, education,
  personality
• Task time pressure, cost of errors, work
  durations
• System platform
• Environment social and physical issues

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Methods for Assessing Usability

• Time to learn
• Speed of performance
• Rate of errors
• Retention over time
• Subjective satisfaction

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Errors in Web Page Layout Design

• Non-standard widgets
• Appearance of advertising
• Bleeding edge technology
• Scrolling text and looping animations
• Outdated information
• Slow download times
• Fixed formatted text
• Long pages

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Good Web Design Practices

• Lightweight Graphics small images to quick image
  download
• Forms and Data Integrity
• Template-based HTML
• Templates to display and process common
  attributes of higher-level, more abstract items
• Creates an interface that is very easy to
  maintain

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Summary

• In this chapter you learned how to
• Explain the process of form and report design.
• Apply general guidelines for formatting forms and
  reports.
• Use color and know when color improves the
  usability of information.
• Format text, tables, and lists effectively.
• Explain how to assess usability and describe
  factors affecting usability.